Residents question art collector deal

Robert Miller

Updated 9:26 pm, Friday, June 13, 2014

Exterior of the Schlumberger property on Sunset Lane in Ridgefield, Conn. on Thursday, Oct. 17, 2013. The buildings on the 45-acre wooded property were used by the multinational oil exploration company Schlumberger Ltd. before the company relocated to Cambridge, Mass., and have been closed since 2006.
Photo: Tyler Sizemore

"It's absurd," said another critic, Helen Dimos. "And I do not think the town is obligated to sign this deal."

Such voices will probably be heard at 10 a.m. Saturday, when the selectmen hold the second of three hearings on the fate of the Schlumberger property. The third will be held at 6:30 p.m. June 25. Both will be held at Town Hall.

Marconi and the other selectmen have been reluctant to talk about the agreement with the art collector, or even reveal his name. At a previous meeting this year, Hancock publicly said the collector is Eric Diefenbach, president of the board of directors of the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum.

At a hearing Wednesday evening, Marconi was much more forthcoming about the details of the proposal.

"We are at the edge of finishing the deal," Marconi said Friday "We need transparency. We need to let the people know what will be done."

Marconi outlined the financial side of the proposal Wednesday. He said the art collector would buy 12 acres of the Schlumberger property from the town --plus its most important buildings -- for $3.4 million.

Because the town is still waiting for the land to get a clean bill of health from the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, it will begin by leasing the property to the collector for $250,000 a year. Once the DEEP signs off on it, the lease would become a sale.

Marcoini said the plan makes financial sense for the town.

The collector will pay the cost of demolishing some of the existing buildings on the property, while saving four -- the concrete shell known as the Skydome, a library, an underground auditorium and the corporate center designed by famed architect Philip Johnson.

Marconi said the town would save the $400,000 cost of demolishing the buildings.

The collector would also pay to renovate the existing buildings, using the Johnson building as a museum. Marconi said the cost of that renovation could be substantial.

"Money has to go into that building," he said of the Johnson corporate center.

Marconi also said the contract gives the town the right of first refusal if the art collector ever wants to sell any of the property.

He also said that after two-and-a-half years of negotiating, the selectmen feel "morally and ethically" bound to complete the negotiations.

The town will have the final say on the deal by voting on it in a referendum.

Hancock said once the town sets a date for the referendum he will campaign to get the town to reject it.

"I will do everything I can to stop it," he said.

Hancock said the reason he opposes the deal is straightforward. The Schlumberger property is the last large piece of open space left in the center of town, and it should be saved for future use.

"I'm 75 years old," he said. "I don't know what the future will bring. But I know the town may need that land."

And other than the auditorium, he said, the other buildings "are a mess.

"I wouldn't care if they bulldozed them," he said.

Dimos said the selectmen made a mistake by negotiating one-on-one with the art dealer without an experienced realtor to guide them through the process of selling such building.

"I don't know of any negotiations that took two years to finish," she said.

And, she said, the town shouldn't lose the auditorium.

"The acoustics there are perfect," she said.

When the voters last month rejected a plan to sell 10 acres of the land to the Toll Brothers development company for $4 million. Dimos said, the selectmen might have realized their approach to the Schlumberger land had lost favor.

Now, she said, they seem intent on making the same mistake with the sale of the land to the art collector.